


Scratching at Scars

by niceshoteagleeye



Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Angst, M/M, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 09:38:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6001179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/niceshoteagleeye/pseuds/niceshoteagleeye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean gets an unexpected and not entirely welcome phone call.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scratching at Scars

“ _This wallpaper is terrible_ ,” Dean thinks for the third time that night. It's some awful floral pattern, the flowers vaguely defined and the background a dismal yellow color that makes him think of a hospital for some reason. But it's better than the endless barrage of romantic comedies that is apparently the only thing on tv, so he stares at the wallpaper instead, counting the flowers, and blocks out the sound of two pretty people falling in love until it's just a background buzz.

It's a helluva lot better than the silence.

Dean knows he should go to bed, he's got an early flight to Anaheim, but the date on the calendar has pretty much condemned him to a sleepless night. And he'd been getting so much better about that, too.

His counting is interrupted by his phone ringing. It's weird enough that someone's calling him at eleven o'clock on a Sunday night – it's even weirder that he doesn't recognize the number. He doesn't give his phone number out to very many people, and especially not to anybody he doesn't trust to keep it to themselves, so unknown callers are a rarity.

Well, anything's gotta be better than what he's doing right now. Even if it is an insane fan that managed to get his number from somewhere. “Hello?”

“Hey, Dean.”

Fuck. This is not better. It's a thousand times worse. He should really, _really_ just hang up. “Seth.”

“The one and only.” Seth never knows what to say in the face of awkward situations, so he usually lands on something trite and stupid.

“ _Some things never change_.” Dean's heart squeezes painfully at that thought. Plenty of them do.

“Did you change your phone number?” Dean asks, for a lack of anything else to say.

“Oh, um, this is my house phone. Cell is dead, didn't feel like getting up to get the charger.”

Dean tries not to think about the fact that that means Seth still has his number memorized. Maybe he keeps a phone book or something.

There's a full minute of silence, and Dean frowns. Staring at the wall was better than this. “Did you call just to breathe at me or what?”

“I... I don't know,” Seth says softly. Dean can picture him looking down at his hands, his hair falling over his face, probably biting his lip. It's weird how Dean always pictures Seth as being so much smaller than he is, even though Seth is only about three inches shorter. “I just couldn't sleep, I guess. I keep getting twinges in my knees. And, you know, the date.”

“I don't really see what that's got to do with me,” Dean says, feigning indifference. As if the reason for his own sleeplessness isn't on the other end of the line.

Seth chuckles, but it just sounds tired. “I can still tell when you're doing that, you know. Acting like you're totally unaffected when that couldn't be farther from the truth.”

Cheeky little asshole. Dean chooses to ignore his (totally on point) observation. “That still doesn't answer my question. S'not like you called last year.”

“Last year I had distractions. And so did you.” Flaunting all of his one-night stands had been a decent coping mechanism at the time, but now it was just depressing.

“What makes you think I don't got plans tonight?” Dean bluffs. Ignoring the tv and critiquing his wallpaper is kind of a plan.

“You answered the phone.” Damn. He doesn't really have a good retort to that. “And I'm not sure that you would have picked up the phone last year.”

“Pro'bly not.” Eight months wasn't enough time to chip away at the gaping wound that Seth had opened up with the chair to his back. The additional year hadn't done too much more, though he's gotten better at hiding it. “I might not've picked up the phone this year, if you'd called from your own number.”

“I figured the odds were about equal on my number versus an unknown one. You don't tend to answer those, either.”

Dean hates this. It isn't fair that people who choose to stop loving you still get to know everything personal about you. They should have to give it all back, so that they don't have the power to hurt you anymore.

Who's he kidding? Seth would keep hurting him just by existing. “So did you just want to prove you could get me on the phone? Congratulations. Go collect your prize money.”

“No, I-”

“Or maybe you hadn't gotten to twist the knife in a while and just wanted to remind me that you still could?” He's being self-indulgent now, and he knows it, but he can't bring himself to care.

“Dean,” Seth says loudly, trying to get a word in. “I'm... not really sure why I called. I was remembering what we did two years ago, and just felt the impulse.”

Dean remembers too. He's been trying not to think of it all day, because he's not a fucking masochist, but Seth's kind of fucked that up for him now.

They'd had a rare day off together and had been close enough to some mountains with a ski resort, so Seth had made it his mission to teach Dean how to ski. He hadn't been great at it, though he'd maintained that was due to Seth's ineptitude as an an instructor. They eventually gave up on the skiing and just messed around in the snow, having a snowball fight and making snowmen of each other. And, of course, spending the night in the cabin.

It had been the last time they'd really gone away anywhere together. And for a while, it was one of Dean's happiest memories, until it wasn't anymore.

A thought occurs to him, and it's so painful that it feels like taking six stiff DDTs in a row. But he has to know. “When we were up there... had you already decided to do it?”

“No,” Seth says immediately, and the lack of a pause convinces Dean that he's probably telling the truth. “That was... a pretty last minute decision.”

Relief spreads through him, numbing the pain back to the dull ache that he's used to. “You always were crap at those,” he says dryly, eliciting a laugh from Seth.

“Dean... I really miss you,” Seth says softly.

It's everything that Dean's wanted to hear for a year and a half. And yet it's all wrong. Fury spreads through his veins like fire, and he's standing up for no real reason. “You don't get to say that to me,” he hisses. “You were the one who stabbed me in the back. You made that decision. You think you can undo all of that with a phone call and a well-placed memory?”

“I... no. I don't. I just thought-”

“Just thought what, Seth? That I'd be vulnerable enough today to eat up anything you fuckin' said? That you could just wheedle your way back into my life because you finally got tired of the choice you made and you're stuck at home, injured and bored? A phone call doesn't make up for a year and a half of treatin' me with contempt.”

“I don't know what else to do,” Seth says, his voice breaking.

“Well it ain't fuckin' this,” Dean snaps. “You wanna make up so badly, figure it out yourself. But don't fuckin' call me to reminisce in the middle of the night.”

The biggest problem with cell phones is that angrily tapping a screen doesn't get anywhere near slamming down a receiver as far as catharsis goes. Throwing it down onto the sofa makes him feel fractionally better. And then the anger drains out of him almost as fast as it had shown up, just leaving him sad and tired.

Another movie had started while he was on the phone. He sits back down and finds the flower in the upper left corner of the wall so that he can start counting again.

“ _Happy fuckin' Valentine's Day._ ”


End file.
